We Are Still Married

May 28, 1989|By LOIS SPRATLEY Book Reviewer

My first thought after reading the title of this book was: Oh! Are they?

I was flashing back, of course, to Garrison Keillor's well publicized mid-life crisis following the confluence of political and personal problems a few years ago. Apparently unable or unwilling to face more Reagan years, he ditched the USA, his first family, his "Prairie Home Companion" fans and headed for Denmark to start a new life with his second wife. (To make it even more rococo, she was, if I remember correctly, an old high school flame who had come to Minnesota as a Danish exchange student.)

I should have known better. When, if ever, has this very talented, enigmatic, unreconstructed 1960's style liberal ever been direct or to the point? "We Are Still Married" turns out to be the story of a couple, who in coping with their dying dog (animals invariably suffer sad fates in Keillor tales) find themselves having to deal with their own celebrity after a media blitz.

Other contributions in this anthology, most of which have been published previously in The New Yorker, include a bunch of his "Talk of the Town" reports, "letters," poems such as "In Memory of Our Cat, Ralph" (sudden death, what did I tell you?) and typically labyrinthian yarns like "Meeting Famous People," the story of the perils awaiting a Big Time country singer who stiff-arms, then slaps a fan at the airport.

And there are plenty of political pokes; a satire on Dan Quayle's Indiana National Guard duty, for instance, and the tale of Ron and Nancy "Niles" who sell their bratty kids and "felt an incredible emptiness for days afterwards."

In "A Liberal Reaches for Her Whip" George Bush's and R.R.'s mutual mother tries (vainly) to shape up her boys. In a pre-election article entitled "Reagan," Keillor, briefly and atypically, even takes off his funny-gloves to soberly sermonize.

Looking like a lovably puckish bullfrog, Keillor dispenses Dave Barry ideas wrapped in a studied Will Rogers style. (Not that either the Haverford-educated Barry or sophisticated Rogers were/are, anything but fabulous fakes themselves.)

The good news for Lake Wobegon fans is that, despite continued conservative control of the White House, Keillor simply couldn't stick it out in Denmark. He was back, in fact, almost before we knew it. (Or so it seemed.) A possible explanation might be inferred from "Episcopal," one of his letters from Copenhagen. In it he claims that that denomination's new, oh-so-trendy service "is more exotic to me than anything in Scandinavia."